The 11th Doctor

At 26 years old, Matt Smith has found himself the youngest actor ever to be cast as the Doctor. When auditioning for the role, Smith had a certain “Doctor-ness about him” that made the relatively unknown actor the production team’s first choice to play the eleventh Doctor.

Of course, internet nerds over the age of thirty will be enraged by the choice. Me, I say let’s just see the lad perform the part before we cast any aspersions.

More from the BBC website here.

Happy New Year

My New Year’s resolution for 2009 - update the World of Me more than I do now!

Have a happy New Year my jolly readers! May the year 2009 bring you much happiness, prosperity, cake and any other of those little things that make you happy!

No, look this way!

Every once in a while the coolest generation of the Skull family meet up for a few beers and a curry. Due to the fact that I have a rather big family (my grandparents contribution to the war effort maybe) I never get to catch up with many of my four million cousins; these curry gatherings tend to be the only time I find out family gossip and, as the youngest of this generation, the only time I get to receive all the abuse and gyp I so rightly deserve!

So here is a selection of photos taken throughout the evening. One note: as we left the Indian restaurant one of the staff shouted at me, “Elvis, give us a song”. Bastard!

OBEY

John Carpenter’s 1988 film They Live was part sci-fi, part black comedy. Pro wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper played a down-on-his-luck construction worker who discovered a pair of special sunglasses which allowed him to see the world as it really is - a world run by aliens that are in charge of a massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

Famous for a gruelling five-and-a-half minute fight scene and the immortal line, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum”, They Live was a commercial failure, only managing to reach a cult following once it was released on video. So how disheartened I am to learn that a remake is in the pipeline.

Why Hollywood feels the need to remake another classic is beyond me. Remakes of Dawn of The Dead, The Day The Earth Stood Still and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre amongst others have done nothing but make the original versions stand out as the good films that they are. No doubt They Live 2.0 will be re-written to accommodate today’s hot topics such as terrorism and the financial crash, and no doubt it will star a current Hollywood heartthrob. I for one am not building my hopes up.

But there is some (potentially) good movie news - Repo Chick!

The Malibu

The 1984 film Repo Man told the story of Otto, a newly hired repossession man who goes in search for a mysterious car carrying a high value package which was taken from a government lab and has strange effects on anyone who views it. Directed by Alex Cox and starring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton, the low-budget Repo Man has gained a cult status among film-buffs, earning itself such accolades as the 8th best movie set in Los Angeles and the third most essential left-field movie hit since 1983.

News has filtered in that a sequel to Repo Man is now in the making. Produced by David Lynch, Repo Chick will “unfold against the background of the credit crunch and the subprime mortgage crisis in the US, where repossessions of homes, cars and other forms of property is at a new high. ‘The repo business has expanded to everything from boats, houses, aeroplanes, small nations…children”

Unlike the aforementioned They Live remake, a sequel such as Repo Chick is a lot easier to stomach, especially as the original director is involved in its creation. This is one film I will be eager to see.

Possibly the best stag night in the world

I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

This is the introduction to the Playstation Three game Little Big Planet, a cute platform game that invites a global community to create playable worlds with level and object creation tools. How anyone could not want to play a game that has that narrator and that music is beyond me.

Duly purchased, and to be played heavily once I return from a rather busy weekend away…

Jesus that was close! Lewis Hamilton - 2008 F1 champion.

Let’s hope the stewards don’t find another stupid reason to give him a penalty.

It’s seldom that I find myself sat in the cold confines of an empty reference library, but here I am, sat in the cold confines of an empty reference library on a rainy Thursday evening proudly watching my brother teaching children how to drum.

I’m here at the old reference library building in Trowbridge. It’s a cold asbestos-filled florescent tube-lit concrete shell of a building that can at best be described as post apocalyptic, yet it teems with life as the strains of Colonel Bogey are being played with a passion from the hall on the upper floor.

Trowbridge Reference Library - a fantastic space once full of files and records

In this hall, twenty-odd children are marching up and down whilst pounding on drums and xylophones - my brother, Tony, and his ex-army chums bark out orders and heap encouragement on the young band members as they march. This is the tentatively-titles Trowbridge Corps of Drums, a new group of people who, save for my brother and colleagues, only a few months ago had never marched or drummed before. Their progress in this short space of time has been quick, so quick that the group plan to march in the Remembrance parades in November.

For me, the best part of all of this is seeing my brother doing not only something that he enjoys, but something that brings enjoyment to others. After years of silly family arguments and petty fall-outs I feel so proud watching him do all this marvellous work.

I think I’ll come along again next week and offer my support. Do you think they’ll have need for a Stylophone player?

It’s the reason I have to moderate all comments before they appear on the site. At one point, after receiving over twenty spam comments in one afternoon, I considered shutting off comments for all posts, but then I realised this was not a direction I wanted the World of Me to take. After all, who would Stuart have left to talk to?

As I can handle the current trickle of spam I’m leaving comments turned on for now, but at the first sign of mass spammage, I’ll turn it off.

I’ll persevere, even to the point where I’ll try another flavour of Linux such as Ubuntu, but unfortunately it seems that you need the patience of a saint to make Linux usable. Unfortunately, I’m no saint.